LOS ANGELES — Starting pitchers for 200. It was not a Jeopardy question at Dodger Stadium this week. It was a prelude-to-Cooperstown and anticipating-the-stretch-run kind of number.
One day after the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw became only the fourth active pitcher to reach 200 career victories, all eyes were on Max Scherzer, who took 204 career wins and three extra days between starts to the mound with him in a game between the Mets and the Dodgers, two of the five highest-paid teams in Major League Baseball.
Scherzer, famously in tune with his body, downplayed the lingering soreness in his back following his last start that had caused the delay.